“Fifty years after being occupied, the West Bank has become a labyrinth of checkpoints, settlements and Israeli-only roads, leaving less and less space for Palestinian life – and almost nothing to bargain with,” writes Mohamed Hassan.

Gaza

The talks, which are being mediated by an unnamed third party, have gathered momentum over the past two weeks, following the return of Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, from a visit to Egypt earlier this month, Channel 1 reported Monday.

“Hamas was left off Saudi’s list of demands for Qatar. Days earlier, a Fatah strongman made a deal with one of the movement’s leaders. Only no one else in Hamas knew – and now it threatens to split the movement,” writes David Hearst.

US-Israeli/Palestinian relations

“Liberal American Jewry is up in arms after the Israeli government nixed a deal to allow men and women to pray together at Judaism’s holiest site. But if American Jews want their interests in Israel safeguarded, they must rid themselves of the fantasy of a nonexistent Jewish pluralism,” writes Noam Sheizaf.